Sand painting by hand is an ancient art form originally practiced in the open air, by distributing colored sands in desired patterns on the ground. Recent years have seen innovations in this ancient art form, by enclosing the sand painting medium within transparent walls of a framed box-like display, enabling the vertical orientation of the picture for a free standing display or for mounting on a wall. One such technique requires that portions of the backing surface be coated with an adhesive so that colored particles which are sprinkled on the wet adhesive will be bonded in place when the adhesive dries. One drawback of this form of sand painting apparatus is that once the particles are placed in position they cannot be removed or changed and the sand composing the sand painting cannot be removed to enable the re-use of the apparatus for a different design. Another sand painting apparatus disclosed in the prior art employs sands composed of a variety of particle sizes within a permanently sealed cavity, the designs within the sand being rendered by shaking or otherwise introducing relative motion between the various sized particles. One drawback of this prior art apparatus is that little control can be exercised over the configuration of the sand design and another drawback is that the sand cannot be removed from the apparatus so that a new design can be made. Still a third type of prior apparatus employs a box-like frame having transparent walls and an open top forming a cavity into which is poured the sand to form a design. The back side of one of the walls in the cavity is coated with an adhesive which is activated by a solvent after the design has acquired its desired configuration. Each of the walls bounding the cavity is of equal height. One drawback of this third prior art apparatus is that after the adhesive has been activated, the sand cannot be removed to enable the reuse of the apparatus. And a second and more serious drawback of this third prior art apparatus is that the operation of distributing the sand within the cavity is made difficult by the relatively long distance between the surface of the sand design being formed in the lower portion of the cavity and the opening to the cavity due to the relatively high walls which bound the cavity.